” It is hard to imagine that this surreal story does not originate in a nation run by a violent warlord (or maybe it does), but it actually comes from Florida, where Lucas Jewell, a resident of Gainesville noticed local members of the Alachua County Sheriff’s Department were riding through town in a tank-like armored vehicle that appears to be a Lanco BearCat, an armored personnel carrier intended for military use.

As Mr. Jewell believes that this is a gross abuse of taxpayers’ dollars and is opposed to the militarization of police, he found this display of military hardware on public roads offensive and showed the individuals in riding in the tank his middle finger and proceeded to continue on his journey.

The deputies from the Alachua County Sheriff’s Department had other plans; they followed Mr. Jewell closely for several blocks and then decided it to pull him over in an attempt to punish and intimidate him.

What appears to be paramilitary group of individuals exited the armored vehicle and immediately proceeded to assault Mr. Jewell, accuse him that he was receiving oral sex from his girlfriend and his middle finger gesture constituted an “improper hand signal” in violation of Florida traffic law. The suggestion that a middle finger raised in the air was intended to be a traffic hand gesture is ludicrous, but it did not stop these cops from attempting to bully Jewell into submission.”

” The federal government has significantly expanded undercover operations in recent years, with officers from at least 40 agencies posing as business people, welfare recipients, political protesters and even doctors or ministers to ferret out wrongdoing, records and interviews show.

At the Supreme Court, small teams of undercover officers dress as students at large demonstrations outside the courthouse and join the protests to look for suspicious activity, according to officials familiar with the practice.

At the Agriculture Department, more than 100 undercover agents pose as food stamp recipients at thousands of neighborhood stores to spot suspicious vendors and fraud, officials said.

Undercover work, inherently invasive and sometimes dangerous, was once largely the domain of the F.B.I. and a few other law enforcement agencies at the federal level. But outside public view, changes in policies and tactics over the last decade have resulted in undercover teams run by agencies in virtually every corner of the federal government, according to officials, former agents and documents.”

” Haunting images of local police officials using military-issued equipment to quell protests in Ferguson, Missouri, have raised new concerns about the Pentagon’s controversial program to equip local and state police departments with military surplus weaponry.

The program, now under White House review, has been plagued by messy bookkeeping, bureaucratic confusion and scores of missing weapons.”

” Fusion has learned that 184 state and local police departments have been suspended from the Pentagon’s “1033 program” for missing weapons or failure to comply with other guidelines. We uncovered a pattern of missing M14 and M16 assault rifles across the country, as well as instances of missing .45-caliber pistols, shotguns and 2 cases of missing Humvee vehicles.

” [The program] is obviously very sloppy, and it’s another reason that Congress needs to revisit this promptly,” said Tim Lynch, director of the CATO Institute’s project on criminal justice. “We don’t know where these weapons are going, whether they are really lost, or whether there is corruption involved.”

More troubling yet is the possibility that some of the missing weapons, which were given to local police departments as part of a decades’ old government program to equip cops for the wars on terrorism and drugs, are actually being sold on the black market, Lynch said.”

” After battling authorities for more than a year, a Portsmouth, Virginia, man was handed a verdict of not guilty by a jury who determined that he did not, in fact, act recklessly when he fired a warning shot at officers who attempted to make forcible entry into his home, only to later discover that they had gone to the wrong house.

The incident, which happened last January, unfolded while Brandon Watson and his wife were watching late-night TV and heard noises coming from the back yard.

“ She said, ‘Oh my gosh, someone is in the backyard,’” Watson told reporters. “The noises got closer and then she heard the clicking of the backdoor handle.”

Watson didn’t immediately call 911 because he couldn’t find his cell phone. However, he wasn’t about to let anyone come into his home and possibly harm his family either. So he ran back downstairs, gun in hand.

Watson called out into the darkness, saying, “Who is that? I have a gun.”

He received no response, but instead then saw a red laser aimed at his chest.”

So the man did what any law-abiding , self-reliant citizen would do to protect his home and loved ones …

” At the point, still not knowing who was trying to get into his home, Watson fired a warning shot through the window and ran across the street to seek help from his neighbor, a Virginia State Trooper.

Then things became even more confusing for Watson. As he ran out of his house he was confronted by authorities who told him to drop his weapon. He complied.

“ They said, ‘We just got news you shot at an officer.’ I said, ‘An officer? Nobody came to my door. What do you mean an officer? I didn’t know there were any officers in my backyard,’” he said.

According to Watson, the cops never announced who they were or why they were there. And the officers, responding to a call from Watson’s neighbor about a possible break-in, had apparently gone to the wrong house.”

Not only did Mr Watson have the intestinal fortitude to engage in armed conflict in defense of home and hearth , he refused to knuckle under to a judicial system rigged to favor the prosecutors and police and forced a jury trial . The jury is to be commended for making a bold statement with regard to the sanctity of the home and the increasing lawlessness of the “law” .

” The judge found Watson guilty, but the matter was far from resolved. Watson appealed the decision and a mistrial was declared by the second judge. Watson then requested a jury trial.

“ This can’t be doing your job. You come in my backyard, try to open my door, open my window and flash red laser beams on my chest because you thought I was the burglar, and I thought you were the burglar,” Watson said.

And apparently the jury, who deliberated for a total of 47 minutes, agreed.

In fact, the jury felt Watson actually showed restraint by only firing a single warning shot.”

That last line is a fabulous statement on individual rights … Mr Watson “showed restraint by only firing a single shot” … You gotta love it …

” Residents of Livingston, IL., population 850, were shocked to see agents from Homeland Security, the US Customs and Border Patrol and local police agencies swarm a field belonging to a grade school yesterday, with one local telling news channel KTVI, “When all the armored trucks started showing up and everything it made me kind of nervous.”

One child said he thought the spectacle was “pretty cool” and that agents invited the local children to check out the choppers up close, despite the presence of weapons inside the helicopters.

The school superintendent said he was not given any information about the operation beforehand, despite authorities using school land as a staging ground. The U.S. Attorney’s Office refused to release any information on the purpose behind the operation.

KTVI labeled the presence of the feds a “mystery,” although it subsequently emerged that the school was being used as a staging ground for a raid on a house three miles away. Authorities refused to divulge the purpose behind the raid or if anyone was taken into custody. “

Statism on the march , the conditioning of the people continues with the goal of making declarations of martial law commonplace and ordinary . Witness the testimony regarding the people thinking the massive display of State firepower as being “pretty cool” .

Yes folks , it’s all “pretty cool” … until it’s your door the kick in in the middle of the night … How cool is that ?

” The Walton County Sheriff’s Department, a department formerly known for community-oriented policing, has joined the ever growing list of departments across the country that have chosen to abandon common sense and deploy an IED resistant armored vehicle.

Walton County is a part of Florida that is so crime free you can leave your doors unlocked. When Hollywood location scouts were looking for a community so perfect that it appeared to be fake, they came to Walton County. The Truman Show, staring Jim Carey, was filmed on location in a small Walton Countycommunity. The twins in the movie, were both Walton County lawmen on set to direct traffic. They were so personable and friendly, they wound up in the movie. Yes, they are really named Ron and Don.

It’s hard to imagine that community being policed by the 30,000lbs International MaxxPro MRAP. The weapon, just back from the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, was recently acquired by the department. Now that it is painted black and labeled as a SWAT vehicle it is ready to be used not against Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah, but against Americans on Main Street.

Sheriff Michael Adkinson, Jr. made a statement on the department’s Facebook Page.The American Civil Liberties Union sees this as a problem, and has launched a nationwide investigation into the militarization of local law enforcement. The ACLU believes the mentality created by the presence of weapons of war causes an escalation in violence.

“It is important to realize that ANY rifle round will penetrate an officers body armor. This includes the common .22cal round. In the past 6 years the WCSO has come under fire from HUNDREDS of rounds during calls. We routinely take assault weapons of persons arrested. An example of this was an incident in which a man handcuffed an AK-47 assault rifle and confronted deputies. During another violent encounter over 100 rounds were exchanged during a shootout inside DeFuniak Springs. During the same time frame we have dealt with 9 barricaded subjects the majority of which had rifles at their disposal. The armored vehicle allows us to get close to the suspect without unnecessary danger. Again a rifle round can penetrate a vehicle and body armor. Certainly a $2,500 surplus vehicle is good insurance. We handle almost double the number of calls for service from a decade ago and unfortunately not all of those can be handled with customer service. This is not the federal government intruding on your civil liberties Would you really want them sent into harm’s way without the best protection available, simply because the military originally purchased this vehicle? The men and women who serve as deputy sheriff’s in this county are your friends and neighbors. This is your Sheriff trying to protect your deputies.”

“ A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”—James Madison

“ Here [in New Mexico], we are moving more toward a national police force. Homeland Security is involved with a lot of little things around town. Somebody in Washington needs to call a timeout.”—Dan Klein, retired Albuquerque Police Department sergeant.

If the United States is a police state, then the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is its national police force, with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies. In fact, although the DHS’ governmental bureaucracy may at times appear to be inept and bungling, it is ruthlessly efficient when it comes to building what the Founders feared most—a standing army on American soil.

The third largest federal agency behind the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense, the DHS—with its 240,000 full-time workers, $61 billion budget and sub-agencies that include the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—has been aptly dubbed a “runaway train.”

In the 12 years since it was established to “prevent terrorist attacks within the United States,” the DHS has grown from a post-9/11 knee-jerk reaction to a leviathan with tentacles in every aspect of American life. With good reason, a bipartisan bill to provide greater oversight and accountability into the DHS’ purchasing process has been making its way through Congress.

A better plan would be to abolish the DHS altogether. In making the case for shutting down the de facto national police agency, analyst Charles Kenny offers the following six reasons: one, the agency lacks leadership; two, terrorism is far less of a threat than it is made out to be; three, the FBI has actually stopped more alleged terrorist attacks than DHS; four, the agency wastes exorbitant amounts of money with little to show for it; five, “An overweight DHS gets a free pass to infringe civil liberties without a shred of economic justification”; and six, the agency is just plain bloated.

To Kenny’s list, I will add the following: The menace of a national police force, a.k.a. a standing army, vested with so much power cannot be overstated, nor can its danger be ignored. Indeed, as the following list shows, just about every nefarious deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions of dollars it distributes to police agencies in the form of grants.

Militarizing police and SWAT teams. The DHS routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants.”

Below are a list of other ways in which the State is busy eroding our Constitutional rights , all explored in greater depth at the Rutherford Institute .

” Spying on activists, dissidents and veterans.

Stockpiling ammunition.

Distributing license plate readers.

Contracting to build detention camps.

Tracking cell-phones with Stingray devices.

Carrying out military drills and lockdowns in American cities.

Using the TSA as an advance guard.

Conducting virtual strip searches with full-body scanners.

Carrying out soft target checkpoints.

Directing government workers to spy on Americans.

Conducting widespread spying networks using fusion centers.

Carrying out Constitution-free border control searches.

Funding city-wide surveillance cameras.

Utilizing drones and other spybots.

It’s not difficult to see why the DHS has been described as a “wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast.” If it is a beast, however, it is a beast that is accelerating our nation’s transformation into a police state through its establishment of a standing army, a.k.a. national police force.

This, too, is nothing new. Historically, as I show in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the establishment of a national police force has served as a fundamental and final building block for every totalitarian regime that has ever wreaked havoc on humanity, from Hitler’s all-too-real Nazi Germany to George Orwell’s fictional Oceania. Whether fictional or historical, however, the calling cards of these national police agencies remain the same: brutality, inhumanity, corruption, intolerance, rigidity, and bureaucracy—in other words, evil. “

” As the nation’s wars abroad wind down, many of the military’s surplus tools of combat have ended up in the hands of state and local law enforcement. Totals below are the minimum number of pieces acquired since 2006 in a selection of categories.”

” Inside the municipal garage of this small lakefront city, parked next to the hefty orange snowplow, sits an even larger truck, this one painted in desert khaki. Weighing 30 tons and built to withstand land mines, the armored combat vehicle is one of hundreds showing up across the country, in police departments big and small.

The 9-foot-tall armored truck was intended for an overseas battlefield. But as President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America’s “long season of war,” the former tools of combat — M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more — are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice.

During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.

For all the police talk of the dangers they face and the armament of the criminal element , there is little proof of such assertions . As a matter of fact 2013 saw the fewest law enforcement deaths in over 125 years and that is not because of armored cars .

In South Carolina, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department’s website features its SWAT team, dressed in black with guns drawn, flanking an armored vehicle that looks like a tank and has a mounted .50-caliber gun. Capt. Chris Cowan, a department spokesman, said the vehicle “allows the department to stay in step with the criminals who are arming themselves more heavily every day.” He said police officers had taken it to schools and community events, where it was a conversation starter.”

” The Times quotes a “more in sorrow than in anger” line from a local police chief:

“I don’t like it. I wish it were the way it was when I was a kid,” he said. But he said the possibility of violence, however remote, required taking precautions. “We’re not going to go out there as Officer Friendly with no body armor and just a handgun and say ‘Good enough.’ “

In order to get a better understanding of the risks involved in policing take a look at the statistics provided below regarding work-related fatalities . Keep in mind that the statistics below are for the calendar year 2008 when 147 officers died in the line of duty while during the year 2013 only 100+/- died .

* A high percentage of police officers deaths involve traffic accidents and not wearing a “seat belt.”

As a for instance to the above quoted police fatality rate bear in mind that in 2013 105 officers were killed in the line of duty and of those 105 only 30 were shot to death . The balance were killed in traffic accidents and other causes as categorized below by the Officer Down Memorial Page .Put forth in such stark , simple terms it is obvious that the people have a lot more to fear of the police than the reverse .

In many cases of police brutality that the FBI investigates, only a small fraction ever receive indictments, and even fewer result in a conviction. In 1996, the FBI reviewed 10,129 civil rights cases, and only 0.2% were filed for prosecution. The prosecution rate for police abuse cases is less than 1% of those investigated. So even if a complaint makes it to the FBI, it is very unlikely to lead to a conviction. This is a classic scenario of ‘the wolf guarding the fox that’s guarding the hen house.’

Is it dangerous to be a cop? FBI reports show that in 2000, 51 police officers were killed in the United States. Out of the hundreds of thousands of law enforcement personnel, this means less than 1/10 of 1% are at risk, thereby making law enforcement personnel one of the safest class of citizens in the United States. On the other hand, nearly one in two civilian women in the United States has either been raped, assaulted, or beaten during domestic violence during their lives. Court records show police officers are four (4) times more likely to commit acts of domestic violence, than any other group — however, they rarely are arrested because their friends respond to the scene of the crime.

According to the Department of Labor, the on-the-job fatality rate for police is lower than that for gardeners, electricians, truck drivers, garbage collectors, construction workers, airline pilots, timber cutters, and commercial fisherman. In fact, fishermen have an occupational fatality rate that is fifteen times higher than that for cops, but rarely do we hear those who provide us with an endless supply of mahi-mahi described as heroes. (SeeSelling the Police: Reflections on Heroism and Hype in America,Tim Wise “

The notion that the police officer’s exposure to danger and life-threatening situations has exploded along with the arming of the criminals and terrorists is to deny the facts .

Mangu-Ward continues:

” And then calls him out on his historical illiteracy:

Congress created the military-transfer program in the early 1990s, when violent crime plagued America’s cities and the police felt outgunned by drug gangs. Today, crime has fallen to its lowest levels in a generation, the wars have wound down, and despite current fears, the number of domestic terrorist attacks has declined sharply from the 1960s and 1970s.”

The threat of domestic terrorism is another Statist strawman used to justify the militarization of our “peace officers” , remember when the were called that , and again does not stand up to even the most simple scrutiny …

Here is a link to the Global Terrorism Database where the reader can find the most complete data on both foreign and domestic terrorism with very user-friendly interactive charts and graphics such as the one below that shows beyond doubt that we are safer now than at anytime in the past 50 years from criminals and terrorists at least .

” Almost all police involved shootings, while investigated by special units, prosecutor’s offices, or an outside police agency, were investigated by governmental law enforcement personnel. It is perhaps not surprising that more than 95 percent of all police involved shootings were ruled administratively and legally justified. A handful of cases led to wrongful death lawsuits. Even fewer will result in the criminal prosecution of officers. Critics of the system have called for the establishment of completely independent investigative agencies in cases of police involved shootings.

It is readily apparent that the most serious risk to the life and limbs of the average citizen in America today comes not from domestic terrorists or even from the average criminal , but from those very “public servants” charged with our protection .

” A Georgia toddler has been put into a medically induced coma after he was badly burned by a police “flash bang” grenade that landed in the crib where the boy was sleeping during a drug raid, his mother told ABC News Friday.

The raid occurred before dawn Wednesday night in Habersham County while the Phonesavanh family was sleeping.”

“ It was a big flash, a loud bang, a bunch of yelling, and my son screaming,” the boy’s mom, Alecia Phonesavanh, 27, told ABC News.

“ Two of my other girls were next to my husband. There was a member of the SWAT team pinning him down, another man had my son who was screaming and crying,” Phonesavanh said.”

“ At that time I didn’t see his playpen, but I kept telling him to ‘Please just give him to me,’” Phonesavanh said of 19-year-old son Bounkham. “‘He’s just scared.’”

According to Phonesavanh, authorities reassured her that everything was fine, “‘He’s okay, he’s just fine, there’s nothing wrong with him,’” she recalled through tears.

“ They lied to me. They kept telling me my son was okay,” she said. “When I saw his playpen I just about threw up. I got really sick, I was so scared.”

“ That picture is enough to traumatize anybody knowing that there was a baby lying there,” Phonesavanh said.”

” When police raided the house early Wednesday morning, they dropped a “flash bang” which police concede landed and exploded in the child’s portable crib.

“ It landed in his playpen and exploded on his pillow right in his face,” Phonesavanh told ABC’s Atlanta affiliate, WSB-TV.”

There is a gofund me account set up to help the parents , who have no insurance , cover the costs of the medical and legal expenses that are sure to be staggering . Give if you can .

” Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah, concerned about the armed agents that surrounded Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s property, is mulling a measure to cut funding for any “paramilitary units” that work for the Bureau of Land Management, the Internal Revenue Service and other federal regulatory agencies.

“ There are lots of people who are really concerned when the BLM shows up with its own SWAT team,” he said, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. “They’re regulatory agencies. They’re not paramilitary units, and I think that concerns a lot of us.”

“ They should do what anyone else would do,” he told the Salt Lake Tribune. “Call the local sheriff, who has the capability to intervene in situations like that.”

This statement gets our vote for most idiotic proclamation of the year from the Obama junta …

” The Interior Department, for its part, said the BLM and National Park Service had armed agents at Mr. Bundy’s ranch to guarantee the safety of the public and of their workers.”

” Moving along to the subject of today’s absurdity, the tiny city of Washington, Iowa with a population of 7,000 and 11 police officers, will be receiving a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. Yes, they will be employing one of these in the field:

These things normally cost $500,000, but will be given to Washington, Iowa for free under a Defense Department program that gives surplus military equipment to domestic law enforcement.

Matthew Byrd writes in the Daily Iowan that:

Sometimes the news is just so drearily awful that you have to sit back and almost appreciate the pure comedy induced by it.

Take this item from Washington, Iowa, where the local police have recently acquired an MRAP vehicle (short for Mine Resistance Ambush Protected) through a Defense Department program that donates excess vehicles originally produced for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to local police departments across the United States, including other Iowa towns such as Mason City and Storm Lake.

The MRAP weighs an impressive 49,000 pounds, stands 10-feet tall, and possesses a whopping six-wheel drive. Originally designed to resist landmines and IEDs, it sure seems like the MRAP will come in handy for the notorious war zone otherwise known as Washington County, Iowa.

If you’re having a bad day, I highly recommend watching a video produced by the Des Moines Register in which Washington police officials try to justify the possession of a vehicle it clearly has no use for. “

” A number of East Williamsburg and Bushwick residents were surprised by a combined federal and NYPD raid on Devoe Street early Sunday morning. Some were disturbed by a loud, low-flying helicopter, while others were simply stopped from going home because the street was blocked off.

Witnesses spotted a big Department of Homeland Security truck as well as DHS agents toting machine guns as they raided 221 Devoe Street. The NYPD was also involved, and one officer told a resident that the bust turned up “kilos of heroin.” (Apparently the drugs may have been from out of the country, hence DHS.)

A resident in a neighboring building told us that he and his partner “were utterly confused and frankly terrorized…I literally had a flashlight-gun pointed at me from a sniper on top of the black armored truck the first time I opened our window to see what was going on.” “

Apparently every crime is now a matter of national security . The justification for Federal stormtroopers to come your way is anything that they say it is , like the “drugs came from outside the country” . There’s a surprise , last we knew opium was not a domestic cash crop … Just another flimsy excuse for the Feds to usurp state and local authority .

We know that they are not doing anything to interfere with the flow of illegal immigration , human smuggling or drug smuggling , seeing as how the Border Patrol has been ordered to “run away” from those folks crossing the border and drug mules . Their sole purpose then , would seem to be to terrorize the legal populace and create a climate of submission .

” The Mitchell family filed suit against the city of Henderson, claiming their Third Amendment rights were violated. But after Franz’s ordeal, several legal experts say such a case might be a long shot.

“ It certainly sounds like they would have a better argument with the Fourth Amendment,” John Malcolm, director of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told TheBlaze. “Without knowing the full facts, it seems the SWAT team definitely violated his due process rights with an unreasonable seizure of his person without a warrant.”

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

“Strict constructionists will tell you (and Fourth Amendment case law bears this out to a large degree) that there is a hierarchy within the Fourth Amendment based on the order of the things protected: person, houses, papers and effects. Thus, a person’s home is held in very high regard by the courts with respect to an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy and the burden the state must meet in order to violate the sanctity of the home without a warrant,” Abdrabbo said. “

” On December 19th, a sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed during an attempt to serve a “no knock” warrant near Sommerville, Texas. Just before 6:00 A.M. an 8 member SWAT team broke through the door of Henry Goedrich Magee to serve a warrant which would permit the team to search the mobile home in which Magee and his pregnant girlfriend were living. Reacting to the pre-dawn, forced entry Magee grabbed a rifle propped against a bedroom door frame and fired at the unidentified intruders, killing 31 year old sheriff’s deputy Adam Sowders. No one else was injured and Magee was taken into custody. He is being held on $1 million bail and has been charged with capital murder, punishable in Texas by life in prison without possibility of parole or death by lethal injection.

It’s a safe bet that a mountain of additional information will be forthcoming should Magee stand trial. But based upon the information that has been released, should Henry Magee have been charged with capital murder? In fact, should he face a murder charge of any kind? IF the SWAT team (as it was called by Texas Ranger Andres de la Garza) entered without identifying its members as law enforcement officers, did Magee have an absolute right to shoot, given that he feared for his life, that of his girlfriend and of their child? Must officers accept any risk which goes along with the serving of a “no knock” warrant, the purpose of which is to confuse, intimidate and catch suspected criminals off guard? “

If someone breaks into your house in the dead of night what would you do ? More and more each day it becomes “us vs them” . Our government has declared war on it’s citizenry . End “No Knock” raids NOW , End the “War on Drugs” NOW .

This sort of nonsense has been going on since Waco or even longer . If the cops suspect a man of being a threat then surveil him , get a warrant , take him down outside his home and then search the premises . That way potential evidence isn’t destroyed , people aren’t killed and our rights are preserved .

In a country where a man has a right to defend his home this sort of tragedy has to be expected and perhaps that is the State’s ultimate goal . If it happens enough will it inspire law makers to make it a crime to defend our homes ?

Many people’s lives are now ruined because of the aggressiveness and militarization of the police . When will it end ?

” Nestled in the tranquil Connecticut River watershed of southwest New Hampshire, the city of Keene has largely avoided the violent unrest common to many other urban areas. With a population of only 23,409 people, Keene’s violent crime index is about half the national average.

Despite the calm, however, local authorities didn’t think twice about requesting a BearCat armored counterattack vehicle from the Department of Homeland Security.

“ Our application talked about the danger of domestic terrorism, but that’s just something you put in the grant application to get the money,” said a Keene City Council member. “What red-blooded American cop isn’t going to be excited about getting a toy like this?”

And if they have it , what “red-blooded American cop” isn’t going to get excited about USING it ?

” While the possession of an armored vehicle by such a peaceful city may seem strange, the militarization of the Keene police force isn’t an isolated case. Over the past decade, thousands of local police departments nationwide have been amassing stockpiles of military-grade equipment in the name of homeland security. Local police now have the sort of equipment soldiers use to fight wars.”

This hard hitting article should be read by all that have an abiding love of liberty and civil rights . This is the type of wisdom to be found as one reads deeper into the article …

” Why the Founders Didn’t Create a Federal Police Force

America’s founders were deeply wary of standing armies in peacetime. They could have given the federal government a well-armed federal police agency to “contain and reverse violent threats to domestic tranquility”—but they deliberately didn’t. Instead, they limited the power of the government, the federal government in particular. They wanted to reduce threats to individual liberty.

The founders realized the danger posed to the American people by police forces that think and act like they are at war. Above all else, the Constitution’s framers believed that government power should be decentralized so that no one person or branch of government could emerge as a force of tyranny. As James Madison said at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive, will not long be safe companions to liberty.” “

Please . Read the whole piece and pass it on . This paragraph gives the reader a chilling example of the mindset existent in today’s police hierarchy and this from the “Live Free Or Die” state …

” In the summer of 2013, a police chief in Concord, New Hampshire, asked Homeland Security for more than $250,000 to purchase an armored vehicle that he could use to protect the city from the Occupy New Hampshire movement and the Free State Project, a civil libertarian group. “The State of New Hampshire’s experience with terrorism slants primarily toward the domestic type,” he said in his filing. “We are fortunate that our state has not been victimized from a mass casualty event from an international terrorism strike; however, on the domestic front, the threat is real and here. Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges.”

We’ll leave you with this final example from the article to mull over and consider if the reader believes this country is being turned into a Statist haven or not .

” Racing Toward a National Catastrophe

Discarding the laws of the land has become a theme of the current administration. If constitutional separations between federal and local law no longer apply, then the only law that does apply is the law of the jungle. If a federalized police force has more firepower than local police or private citizens, then might makes right.

If federal agents want to swoop in and confiscate a company’s financial statements, then the executive branch of government “can do what they want, when they want, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” If a city mayor wants an MRAP to stop protests by civil libertarians, then you better hope he wakes up in a benevolent mood, because that’s the only remaining guarantee of public safety.

Here is what Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote in the Washington Times: “Mr. Obama has argued that he can kill Americans whose deaths he believes will keep us all safer, without any due process whatsoever. No law authorizes that. His attorney general has argued that the president’s careful consideration of each target and the narrow use of deadly force are an adequate and constitutional substitute for due process. No court has ever approved that” (Feb. 7, 2013).”

It’s all being done in the name of “public safety” but who is really being made safer ? The public ? Or the State ? For everyone’s sake READ THE ENTIRE PIECE .

Iraqi insurgents have killed around 3,500 Americans in Iraq since 9/11 in Operation Iraqi “Freedom.”

Afghan insurgents have killed around 2,000 Americans in Afghanistan since 9/11 in Operation Enduring “Freedom.”

” The police are getting paid with our money to go on shooting sprees and they are killing more of us than the terrorists from whom they “protect” us. In fact, you are eight times more likely to be killed by a cop than by a terrorist.

” Thousands of family dogs are shot by law enforcement each year. A documentary now being assembled tries to find out why. You can watch the trailer above.

Some readers may be familiar with Cheye Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. Police raided his home when they discovered that a large package of marijuana in transit was addressed to Calvo’s wife. The package, meant for someone else, led police to execute a SWAT raid during which they shot the family’s dogs, Payton and Chase. Puppycide is a feature-length documentary that attempts to capture both the impact on traumatized families and the rationales offered by police.”

Are you a dog owner ? Don’t let the cops near your house then . They are liable to shoot first and ask questions never . If you can spare the money please contribute to the “Puppycide” Kickstarter campaign .

It appears that the funding goal was not reached and so the producers will need to start over as Kickstarter is an all or nothing fundraising tool . Hopefully they have figured another way to get the necessary funds . We will try to keep our readers posted on new developments in hopes of seeing this documentary to it’s successful conclusion .

Here is a synopsis from the Kickstarter page regarding “Puppycide”

” Every 98 minutes, a dog is shot by law enforcement. Help us tell their stories.

PUPPYCIDE is a feature length documentary that takes a journey with victims of puppycide, the dogs and their owners. From the moment they meet and seal their emotional bonds to the excruciating trauma of loss, we follow the dog owners’ battles for justice with police culture and the legal system, both of which treat puppycides as acceptable collateral damage.”

“When we first learned about puppycide, we assumed that these must be cases of police responding to threats on their lives from dogs trained to attack by criminal owners. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We found scores of videos and news stories about dogs who were laying down, tails wagging, even running away but still shot by officers who used lethal force as their first and only response.

We were very upset by the footage and stories and felt a documentary on the topic was in need. We took our cameras on the road, reaching out to victims and capturing their experiences.

We also began exploring the police perspective, which is a vital part of this story. While some incidents involve callous officers too quick with the trigger, we found the issue is much bigger than that. The lack of repercussions, policy changes, new equipment, or apologies, demonstrate how systemic this problem is. Experts have explained in interviews how police officers are not currently offered the simple training, tools, and support they need to change.

We’ve found countless people who don’t know puppycide is going on and wish to know more about it. That is why we feel this documentary is so important, and why we need your help to tell these tragic stories in a feature length documentary so that PUPPYCIDE can reach the masses.”

” A paramilitary force was dispatched to a townhouse after a woman reported a domestic dispute between her and her boyfriend. When her boyfriend stubbornly chose to stay inside his home, police shot him and drove an armored truck through his front door.

The situation began on August 29th around 2:40 p.m. when John Geer — a 46-year-old kitchen designer and installer — was told by his girlfriend that she had decided to leave him. The couple had two daughters together, ages 13 and 17. Emotionally distraught over the breakup, Geer exacerbated the situation by throwing her belongings onto the lawn of their townhouse.

This led to her calling the police. She informed the dispatcher that he owned a firearm. A SWAT team was sent to the quiet cul-du-sac.”

” Geer’s home was surrounded by armored vehicles and uniformed personnel. A police sniper was photographed lying prone in a neighbor’s yard aiming toward Geer’s residence. Men in helmets and military fatigues cordoned off the neighborhood. Police began making their demands. An armored truck a topside gun turret parked in his yard and prepared for a strike command. As time went on, helicopters whirred overhead and K-9 units were seen by neighbors.

“We’re just here to help you — come out with your hands up,” recounted neighbor Edith Eshleman, of the police negotiations.

Fairfax County police officers spent approximately 40 to 50 minutes communicating with Geer, insisting that he either let them in his home or that he exit into their custody. He did neither. Geer was “a very stubborn man,” according to one of his relatives.

Geer’s girlfriend and two teenage daughters had already left when the negotiations came to an abrupt conclusion. An officer shot Geer through a screen door as he stood facing outward at them. Geer closed the door and retreated into his house.”

” Refusing to be forced from your home or to allow agents of the state to enter without a warrant is not an offense punishable by execution. And though his mental state was, in the words of his friend Jeff Stewart, “emotionally wrecked that day,” the antagonistic response from the state cannot be touted as a positive outcome by any reasonable standard.”

As you can see , the original news report was very misleading and could easily give the viewer the impression of police confronting an armed individual who perhaps fired on them . We now know that was not the case , but did that impression originate from the press reporter himself of the police ?

So now the mere suspicion of possession of a gun is reason enough to kill a man . Welcome to Police State USA . You can read more on this continuing story of police killing here , here , here , here and here .

This undated photo provided by the City of Roseville shows Sammy Duran. Duran is a suspect in the shooting of three law enforcement officers that occurred in Roseville, Calif., Friday, Oct. 25, 2013.
(AP Photo/City of Roseville)

The above photo from AP/City Of Roseville claims to be of suspect Samuel Duran but it does not look anything likehis mug shots .

This photo from the NY Daily News is the one more commonly associated with the captured suspect .

” Police say a gunman suspected of wounding a federal immigration officer and three local police officers has surrendered after an hours-long standoff in a Sacramento suburb.

Authorities say 32-year-old Samuel Nathan Duran would be booked in Roseville’s jail, then taken to Placer County jail. He surrendered at 12:30 a.m. Saturday.

The shootings happened Friday afternoon before the standoff occurred.”

The Bangswitch has much more detail on the shootings , attempted escape and the standoff .

” A manhunt continued for well over an hour and Duran was spotted hiding under a table in a park. He fled and officers narrowed in on him. They managed to corner him in a home, one of many that had just been evacuated, and he began to barricade himself inside. A tighter perimeter was put around the small group of homes because they were not initially sure which home he might have gone in.

As SWAT officers approached a home, shots rang out from inside the home striking two of the SWAT officers, one in the face and the other in the shoulder. A third was struck in the face and upper body with a round that fragmented on something before striking him. Somehow, somewhere, while running from the cops, Duran managed to score a rifle, which is what he shot the SWAT officers with. The injured SWAT guys were quickly extracted and taken to the local trauma center, while the perimeter was tightened around the home they now knew he was in.”

” On Jan. 4 of last year, a local narcotics strike force conducted a raid on the Ogden, Utah, home of Matthew David Stewart at 8:40 p.m. The 12 officers were acting on a tip from Mr. Stewart’s former girlfriend, who said that he was growing marijuana in his basement. Mr. Stewart awoke, naked, to the sound of a battering ram taking down his door. Thinking that he was being invaded by criminals, as he later claimed, he grabbed his 9-millimeter Beretta pistol.

The police say that they knocked and identified themselves, though Mr. Stewart and his neighbors said they heard no such announcement. Mr. Stewart fired 31 rounds, the police more than 250. Six of the officers were wounded, and Officer Jared Francom was killed. Mr. Stewart himself was shot twice before he was arrested. He was charged with several crimes, including the murder of Officer Francom.

In my own research, I have collected over 50 examples in which innocent people were killed in raids to enforce warrants for crimes that are either nonviolent or consensual (that is, crimes such as drug use or gambling, in which all parties participate voluntarily). These victims were bystanders, or the police later found no evidence of the crime for which the victim was being investigated. They include Katherine Johnston, a 92-year-old woman killed by an Atlanta narcotics team acting on a bad tip from an informant in 2006; Alberto Sepulveda, an 11-year-old accidentally shot by a California SWAT officer during a 2000 drug raid; and Eurie Stamps, killed in a 2011 raid on his home in Framingham, Mass., when an officer says his gun mistakenly discharged. Mr. Stamps wasn’t a suspect in the investigation.”

” After leaving her operating room scrub nurse duties at Sarasota’s Doctors Hospital on Wednesday, Louise Goldsberry went to her Hidden Lake Village apartment.

Her boyfriend came over, and after dinner — about 8 p.m. — Goldsberry went to her kitchen sink to wash some dishes.

That’s when her boyfriend, Craig Dorris — a manager for a security alarm company — heard her scream and saw her drop to the floor.

Goldsberry, 59, said she had looked up from the sink to see a man “wearing a hunting vest.”

He was aiming a gun at her face, with a red light pinpointing her.

“I screamed and screamed,” she said.

But she also scrambled across the floor to her bedroom and grabbed her gun, a five-shot .38-caliber revolver. Goldsberry has a concealed weapons permit and says the gun has made her feel safer living alone. But she felt anything but safe when she heard a man yelling to open the door.”